Bastille Day- Day

Bastille Day! The day of French independence and be-headings. But how does it compare to the 4th of July?

The first similarity is that we had no school that day. Yay! (I need a break from the imparfait and the passe composse. It's all in the past french people, pick a tense.) But that's the only day we got off. What happenned to the day before Bastille Day? or the day after? How do the french recover from the cheese and wine pique-niques? Regardless, and since everyone was still recovering from the Fireman's Ball, Don and I set set off to walk around.

We started off walking towards the Pantheon, since we heard that it was a good place to view the fireworks that night and we were scoping out locations. There was indeed a nice view of the Eiffel Tower from there, and the building itself was garlanded with red, white , and blue banners, which was very festive.

Don heard that all the national museums were free in celebration of BD. So we tried to go into the Pantheon and found out that it was not the case -a marketing ploy perhaps?-,and the museums were still charging and they wouldn't accept student IDs for discounts. So not feeling up to visiting another gravesite so early in the morning, we decided to pass.

Also, there were huge tanks on the street, probably heading to the Champs Elysses for the parade. It was still a little jarring to see huge armed vehicles going down a small city street though. I felt like I was in "Red Dawn" all of a sudden.

Then we walked around most of the day, just getting a feel for the city. A lot of the government buildings were decorated lightly with banners, but overall, there weren't any full on decorations going on. And no one wished us a Happy Bastille Day at the coffee shops or anythings. Very mellow.

We had decided to watch the fireworks from one of the bridges on the Seine, so we stopped by the Monoprix to get cheese and wine (and t-shirts for me since I was running out of clean ones and the nuns were all booked for laundry service). From there we headed back to the dorms meet up with everyone else.

And What Else Is Going On?

In the afternoon, I ran some errands and then met the rest of the group for a cultural tour of St. Germain de Pres.

Madame Dominique was a charming guide, but it was still boring, so Gina and I skipped out the back stairs of the theater we were visiting and walked up St. Michel to the Seine. We flanneured around and took some pictures and then went for a drink at the Pub St. Germain, which was horrendously expensive for what we got: Gina a very slushy and sweet Mojito, and a filled-to-the-brim-with-Cassis Kir for me. But it was still fun (be on the lookout for a post about soap).

Then we walked around the Luxembourg Gardens, stopped by Monop...to buy snacks (including the fore mentioned cutest snack ever!), and headed back to the dorm for nun dinner. Today's menu: grapefruit, meatloaf nuggets wrapped in bacon, green salad, french/American/freedom fries, brie cheese course, and semolina pudding.

Later on, I took a walk to Monoprix to buy some nun-friendly-lenght pajama shorts and school supplies. I love my new Trapper Keeper!